My Students To Put Their Laptops Away by Clay Shirky I teach

Last updated: 4/9/2023

My Students To Put Their Laptops Away by Clay Shirky I teach theory and practice of social media at NYU and am an advocate and activist for the free culture movement so I m a pretty unlikely candidate for internet censor but have just asked the students in my fall seminar to refrain from using laptops tablets and phones in class I came late and reluctantly to this decision I have been teaching classes about the internet since 1998 and I ve generally had a laissez faire attitude towards technology use in the classroom This was partly because the subject of my classes made technology use feel organic and when device use went well it was great Then there was the competitive aspect it s my job to be more interesting than the possible distractions so a ban felt like cheating And finally there s not wanting to infantilize my students who are adults even if young ones time management is their job not mine Despite these rationales the practical effects of my decision to allow technology use in class grew worse over time The level of distraction in my classes seemed to grow even though it was the same professor and largely the same set of topics taught to a group of students selected using roughly the same criteria every year The change seemed to correlate more with the rising ubiquity and utility of the devices themselves rather than any change in me the students or the rest of the classroom encounter Over the years I ve noticed that when I do have a specific reason to ask everyone to set aside their devices Lids down in the parlance of my department it s as if someone has let fresh air into the room The conversation brightens and more recently there is a sense of relief from many of the students Multi tasking is cognitively exhausting when we do it by choice being asked to stop can come as a welcome change So this year I moved from recommending setting aside laptops and phones to requiring it 21 What is the author s main claim A Technology is negatively affecting classrooms across the country B Putting aside the distraction of technology can revitalize a classroom Students want an excuse to put down their mobile devices in class A learning environment with no phones is important to student success 22 The phrase laissez faire means A without interfering B not very strict